2024 Porsche 911 S/T Review: The Best 911 To Buy!

The Porsche alchemists at Stuttgart have created the perfect 911 in the form of the Porsche 911 S/T. It can give sleepless nights to its competition and regret in the hearts of existing GT3 owners. 

The all-new 2024 Porsche 911 S/T is the latest GT version of the 992 generation. The S/T pays homage to the limited-production race-car version of the 911 S from the late 60s and is only limited to 1,963 units to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the 911 (1963–2023). Yes, only 1,963 units of the 911 S/T will ever be made, and that's a very limited number considering Porsche has sold over 50,000 units of the 911 all over the globe last year in 2023.

It is presumably a much-awaited sequel to the 2016 Porsche 911 R, which was limited to only 991 units! To create this successor to the 911 R, Porsche took a 992 GT3 Touring, gave it a diet with the engine comes from a GT3 RS, mated to a 6-speed manual. What Porsche ended up with was the lightest 992 911 and probably the best driver's car of this generation. Or Is it? Btw, the 2024 Porsche 911 S/T price starts at $291,650. Let me explain my time with the 911 S/T below. 

The 2024 Porsche 911 S/T Has A Timeless Design

Unless you pay close attention to it, you might think that the S/T is just another 911. The S/T looks a lot like the GT3 Touring, but comes with slight changes here and there. And depending on your opinion, the S/T looks as good or bad as any other 911. I think it looks good, slightly retro which is my taste. 

It looks very subdued from the outside, unlike a GT3 RS, which has crazy aero bits along with a big spoiler. The hood is from a GT3, while the doors are from a GT3 RS. These two elements, along with the roof and fenders, are made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP).This has been done to reduce weight, which is a major theme with this car. Even the glass is lightweight.

The Shore Blue Metallic paint looks great on this

The front of the car is very simple and looks pretty good, especially cause everything is color-matched. The one I’m reviewing is in Shore Blue Metallic, and it looks great on this. If you happen to get the Heritage design package, you’ll get an old Porsche badge on the front, which is super cool. There are a few other additions to this package, and we’ll get to them soon.

The 911 S/T comes with magnesium wheels as standard. If you get the Heritage package, these wheels will be colored white; otherwise, they'll be black. In my opinion, both colors look great. The only thing you’ll have to worry about is how it goes with the color of the car, and in this case, the white wheels look great with the Shore Blue Metallic color. Both the front and rear wheels are fitted with Pirelli tires, with the ones in the back being a bit wider. You can also get Michelin Cup Two tires if you want and there's carbon-ceramic brakes as standard.

Another addition to the heritage package are the decals on the side of the car. The decals on the review car say 63, with Porsche written below it, but you can get any number you want. But if I were you, I wouldn't get the decals in the first place. The rear of the car also looks great, especially because of that beautiful light bar that we have seen before on other 992 911s. Right below the light bar, there’s gold Porsche lettering, which looks great with this paint job. 

You also get a 911 S/T badge along with a 60-year anniversary badge on the rear as part of the heritage package. Both badges look great. Between these two badges are two vertical brake lights, which are quite distinctive and go well with the rest of the rear exterior. 

Another unique thing about the rear of the 911 S/T is the gurney flap, which is situated on the rear wing. This flap increases the drag produced without opening the wing. This allows the rear wing to open up a bit later than usual, somewhere around 80 mph, and it keeps the beautiful rear lines of the car intact. Surely, a clever design in my opinion. 

Finally, you have your dual-tip exhaust system at the bottom, which might look good but sound even better. Overall, the 911 S/T is a very subtle-looking car, and if you’re someone who wants a great-handling 911 but doesn’t want to stand out, the S/T is a great choice.=

Classy Yet Modern Interior Of The 911 S/T

The inside of the 911 S/T does feel special, especially if you get the heritage package. But the interior of the S/T is just like the exterior, as in, it is pretty much the same as most 992 911s but with some changes. If you happen to get the Heritage package, you’ll get a tan interior instead of the usual black interior. 

Besides that, other changes include the gauge cluster having a retro green glow, which makes it really cool. The same green glow can be seen in the sport chrono display in the center of the dash. On the passenger’s side, there is a vintage 911 logo on the dash that has the car’s serial number written just below it. The one I’m driving has 0000 as its serial number since it's a prototype model that's going to be used for testing. 

As I mentioned before, the rest of the interior is pretty much the same, but there is this duality of luxury and performance. The doors of the 911 S/T don’t come with door handles to save weight but have door loops instead. Sure, door loops aren’t anything special since even the GT3 RS comes with nylon door loops, but the ones in the S/T are made of leather.

Okay, back to the dual theme of luxury and performance. The seats look really good and are covered in a nice leather material. There’s also this cloth material woven in the center of the seat. You even have a Porsche embossed in the headrest, which looks great. All of this is done on a bucket seat made of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) to save weight. There’s not much you can do with these seats. It has a fixed recline, and there’s no memory function. You can manually slide them, but that’s it.

It’s obvious that Porsche’s main priority was to lose weight, but at the same time they wanted to give customers a somewhat luxurious ride because it is supposed to be the best road car and not a track beast. The rest of the interior is also wrapped in leather, with black pieces of trim here and there. The interior has a classy but modern touch to it, and I like that a lot.

Surprisingly comfortable seats

When it comes to comfort, the seats are surprisingly comfortable, but they are kind of hard to get out of. They aren’t comfortable for long journeys, though, which is kind of a shame because once you start driving this car, you won’t want to stop anytime soon.

Let The Music In

Porsche has also reduced the insulation in the car to, again, save weight. The carpets are thinner, and the ceiling has a microfiber-perforated suede roof liner that feels nice but is lighter than the traditional choices of leather or cloth. For some of you, this might be a downside, as you can hear a lot more from the outside. 

Enthusiasts would love the aural symphony on offer 

However, once you sit inside the car and switch on the engine, you’ll understand why they made this decision. The thinner insulation allows you to hear the beautiful notes of the exhaust, which sounds great both when you’re at idle and when you’re at the 9,000 rpm rev limit.

Interior Features

The infotainment screen that comes with the S/T is the same as the rest of the 911s, which is not a bad thing. It’s not the best or the biggest screen in the segment, but it gets the job done. It’s responsive, quite intuitive, and easy to use. You get a few physical buttons below that to control the axle lifter, suspension settings, and traction and stability control. Below that, you get physical buttons for your dual-zone climate control, which is great. I always prefer having physical buttons for these functions.

If you have been in other 911 GT3s, one thing you’ll definitely notice is that there are fewer buttons on the steering wheel. One thing that is missing is the drive mode selector. This is because Porsche has tuned this car to feel great on the road, and they don’t want us to change the settings to worsen our driving experience.

Like I mentioned before, the gauge cluster looks really cool thanks to the green glow that is there. The cluster itself is made of one fixed gauge in the center that shows your revs and your speed. There are screens on either side of this gauge that can be customized to show various different readouts, depending on what you want.

The last thing that I wanted to point out was that, in the Euro version of this car, you get a roll-cage behind the front seats, but unfortunately, we here in the US won't be getting that because of regulations. 

Weight Saving Methods

As I mentioned earlier, one of Porsche's main objectives was to reduce as much weight as possible. I already talked about some of the weight-saving tactics they used. These include using CFRP hoods, roofs, fenders, and doors; removing the back seats and using thinner insulation. Besides that, they used magnesium wheels, which not only look cool but save around 5 lbs per wheel. They also eliminated the rear-wheel steering that was present in other GT3 models, and this saved them around 13 lbs. 

Porsche 911 S/T underwent serious weight reduction for enhanced power-to-weight ratio 

Instead of using the lithium-ion battery found in the 911 GT3 Touring, they used a lightweight starter battery that weighs around 6 lbs lighter. The clutch used in the 911 S/T is around half the weight of the dual-clutch transmission used in the GT3 Touring. This leads to a weight reduction of 23 lbs. 

Porsche even used a lightweight flywheel in the S/T. In total, the 2024 Porsche 911 S/T weighs 3,056 lbs, which makes it the lightest 992-gen 911. All of this weight reduction has been done alongside a bunch of other changes to make sure that the 911 S/T is the best road car in the world.

The 2024 911 S/T Offers An Amazing Driving Experience

Most of the mechanical parts of the 911 S/T have been borrowed from other 911s, but they do have some changes to them. The engine comes from a GT3 RS. This means that it has a naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-6 engine that produces 518 hp and 342 lb-ft of torque. There’s no turbocharging or electrification going on here. It’s as pure as an engine can be, and I think that’s the way it should be, at least in a driver’s car like this.

2024 Porsche 911 S/T specs

The first big change is in the transmission, where unlike the GT3 RS, where the same engine is mated to a dual-clutch PDK automatic transmission, the engine in the 2024 911 S/T is mated to a 6-speed manual transmission. It’s the same gearbox as the 911 GT3 Touring, but it has a shorter final drive, which makes it better suited for the road, which was Porsche's goal with the S/T. 

The S/T comes with the same spring and damper setup as the GT3, but since Porsche reduced a lot of weight, they tuned it to make it softer. And since they had to get rid of the rear-wheel steering to save weight, they returned the steering ratio to make it slower. All of these changes together make the driving experience of the 2024 911 S/T one of my most memorable ones in recent times. 

The handling of the 911 S/T doesn’t feel as sharp as a GT3 or a GT3 RS, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling great. The steering is linear and very direct. It’s enjoyable because you can predict what’s going to happen next. The ride feels kinda harsh compared to the actual luxury cars, but it feels planted at all times, especially around corners. The experience is more engaging than a hyper-stiff sports car.

Probably the best manual transmission in the business

The engine response is also great. Like the throttle response is almost instantaneous, and there’s basically no rev hang at all. We already kinda knew that because we had experienced this engine before. But when you combine it with the 6-speed manual, it's a different animal altogether. The shifter itself is 10 mm shorter than the one found in the GT3, and it feels great in your hands. It has short throws, and there’s no vagueness about it all. It’s very precise, and you need it to be so because you’ll be shifting gears quite often.

This car revs so quickly to its 9,000 rpm limit, it's unbelievable. Because of that, I had to constantly change gears, which isn’t the best for performance, but that's not what this car is meant for. It was made for you to have fun while driving. Last thing I want to mention about the driving experience is the sound coming from the exhaust. 

Because of the thinner insulation, there’s a lot more that comes through to the car. And considering the fact that it sounds so good, it’s definitely a plus. The best part is that, since there are so many drive modes in the car, they're always going to sound the same.

You Should Definitely Get One, If You Can

The Porsche 911 S/T has all the right ingredients to be a fun roadgoing sports car: rear-wheel drive, a naturally aspirated engine, and a manual. Porsche has not only succeeded in creating a fun roadgoing sports car with these ingredients; they have also managed to create one of the best drivers cars of this generation.

The connection between the car and the road is almost unbreakable; the 6-speed manual is one of the best transmissions I have ever used; and the exhaust note is amazing. The 911 S/T brings a certain level of joy that only a few cars can achieve. There is one big issue with the car, though: its availability. 

There are only 1,963 units available worldwide, which in itself makes the car hard to get. Then there’s the price tag. It is priced at almost $300,000. But the chances of you getting one of those around MSRP are near impossible. You can expect a markup of $100,000 or even $200,000.

My advice to any would-be buyers is to get a GT3 Touring, which will cost you $110,000 less (not including the markup) and give you somewhere close to 95% of the joy you would get from the S/T. Better yet, if you never drive one of these, you will think the GT3 Touring is the best driver's car there is, and you won’t be disappointed. On a side note, any GT3 Touring owners should try to avoid driving a S/T ever so that they don’t get disappointed with their car.